Tuesday, August 8, 2017

This is the type of post that I have probably done many times before, I call this type of post "Blogged, But Not Blogged". Long story short since Aug 2007 I have been blogging about my card mail days over at TCC on my blog over there and since July 2012 duplicating those posts in a mail day thread at the TCZ forums. There are many cards I have mentioned in detail at those sites that I have never blogged about here on what I consider to be my official trading card blog. A few times, mostly in the early days, I mentioned a card in my mail day and even scanned it (at least the front) but never blogged about it over here.

This is the story of one such card:

This card I have shown a few times online. I am surprised I never showed it here.

27 Apr 2013:
One of the first mentions of the card I'm gonna show I posted about on TCC in a post called "Football Break plus a couple of Harper Sketches".* I also made a small rant about it. "Sort of tired of the card companies making all these minute variations of cards that you have to search 20 different levels of variations just to realize your card is considered the "base" version (even if they do seal it in a hinged case)." Strange I didn't show it on that post, but showed the Bryce Harper sketch cards.28 Apr 2013:From TCC Forum post #81 in CaptKirk42's Collection thread.
Got some cards from a group break over at TCZ (a sort of younger cousin of TCC cause there are loads of TCC folk there). I'll only show two of the cards from the break I got about 14 more I had Rams/Ravens plus draft teams of Bears/Vikings. Products were:2012 Panini Absolute2011 Donruss Elite2010 Panini Plates & Patches

I got at least 2 cards from each product, most of it was Elite base.

Here are my two fave cards. I'll let the cards do the talking both are from the 2010 Panini Plates & Patches.

89 Danny Amendola Rams Base #d 016/499

And the Sweet one:

Mardy Gilyard Rams Auto (blue sharpie on cut card)

3 color GU (Gold, White w/stitching, Blue) #d 470/699

Notes:
* The Bryce Harper sketches I mentioned in the original TCC post I blogged about here at Curly W Cards.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

So a few years back I had a contest or two just for the fun of it in what I like to call "Random Acts of Cardness". I think most can figure out what that means. On one of those adventures I came up with this interesting piece:

Front of RAC Card

Back of RAC Card

The links at the end of this post give the full story and details, most of which I forget. The basic gist was I held a contest and then sent the winner of the contest some cards along with this homemade RAC (Random Acts of Cardness) Card. My original idea, as it starts to come back to me, was to start the card on a year long journey to as many card collectors as possible then back to me at year's end. Procrastination took hold of me and I didn't send the RAC out until Early Aug 2013. I Tracked it's progress along the way to see how many people had received it. If you remember getting it you're an OLD FART blogger. Kidding. It was only 3 years ago, Oops 4.

I had gotten the idea from some forum posts at TCC Both were a kind of "Pass it on"/"Pay it forward" type of ideas. One was an old site tradition of a wooden coin, or a lucky coin or something. I think it was a homemade thing that was hand-marked "TCC Lucky Coin" or something similar. Not sure cause I never got it. It had an index card that accompanied it on it's travels that the recipients were to write their name and where they were located. The idea of it was if you were lucky enough to get it you passed it on to another member at random. The lucky coin or whatever it was has long stopped somewhere unknown. That is what usually happens with these kind of things.

The other TCC post that prompted the RAC idea was called "The Chain". It was a "pick one card, leave one card" package. It soon morphed into a pick whichever cards you want so long as you replace them with an equal or greater number of cards. That would morph into including larger items and memorabilia at one time, which made future Chain packages have to make rules to limit what could be placed in the package. At one point there was a full 500+ card set, a signed baseball and maybe something else that added to the shipping cost of the package. For later rounds large items and memorabilia were banned from the package(s). The originator would send the package to the first person on the list, that person would choose a card or two, add a card or two equal to or greater than the count of what they took, then pass the package onto the next person on the list and so on. The person at the end of the list would ship the package to the originator of the package. A fun element was when the originator of the package listed the original contents (and possibly provided a picture or scans of the cards), and then by the time it got back to the originator what cards were in the final package.

As you can see from the tracking info below, it went halfway across the good old USofA, took a late summer vacation in Portugal (to see all the lovely lady cards I bet) back to the States and then in late December around Christmas time disappeared somewhere in the back alleys of Illinois. It may have made it out of that state, but me thinks it crossed da family somehow and is now swimmin' whit da fishes.

Here is how the unskilled trackers at CK42HQ shadowed shadowfly followed The RACs journey:

Anyway there have been times I've thought of sending another of these things around. Maybe this time I won't ask for it to be returned just that it gets PAID FORWARD to other collectors and update me with a heads up to its current location from time to time?

Guess I should show a card maybe two. OK maybe just one quick Card of the Whenever.

This card I have mentioned the cards I had gotten the same day as this one on 04 April 2017 my birthday in fact. At first I thought it was the same package but I double checked my mail day "blogs" and it was in a package by itself. I had to battle a little for it. It was from an Auction at Sportlots got it for $1.25 with $2.25 shipping.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

A huge part of collecting cards, for most collectors is also trading cards with other collectors. It is not necessary, but it adds to the fun. In today's high-tech world most trading now seems to be done through trading card forums, social media like Facebook and Twitter, and also through the Blogiverse. In some areas the LCS (Local Card Shop) might be another place for trading, many have some kind of activity night like a "pack war" night where collectors gather and open packs of cards. The collector who pulled the most hits gets some sort of cool door prize.
Another big part of collecting is having one's collection ORGANIZED in some logical fashion. Sadly I have been very delinquent in both these areas. More so with the unorganized part.

My organization of my collection has been off for several years, pushing at minimum 10 or more. I've been in my apartment for 9 years August 1st (today). Sometime before my move, at least a year possibly two or three earlier, I had started a re-organization effort but didn't ever finish it. Basically my card collection was about 90% organized and partly in binders partly in boxes. Some of the boxes were made for trading cards some not.

I had my Baseball cards organized by player's last name (from a previous reorganization using the standard organized by year, brand, card number). Team cards and team leader cards with multiple players under the team nickname. Multiple player cards of different teams I had under whatever the reason for the grouping was. If it was a picture of two Pitching Aces then the card was usually under whatever the title on the card was or "Pitchers - Aces", checklists were prominently in the "Cs" under "Checklist" Obviously. Adding cards was letter-by-letter and some letters I didn't have to shift over every update, but letters like "M" and "S" almost always had several additions and a lot of time spent shifting all the "S"s from sheet to sheet, card by card. My collection was so big I didn't have binders for the second half of the alphabet. I forget which letter my binders ended and the boxes began. Well I then decided to re-organize the Baseball to the way it used to be and my other sports cards were by year, brand, set, card number. Non-Sports was sorted by set name, card number. I had only gotten about half way done with that project when I gradually just stopped working on it and then a year or two later I had to move. The collection has been more like a hoard ever since. Often I have given up on ever getting organized again. (and not just with my trading cards)

Lack of organization of course has lead to unintentionally buying duplicates of cards all the time. Discovering website based collection tracking databases like Zistle and TradingCardDataBase have been extremely helpful in KNOWING what I have and in some cases what I need. It hasn't stopped the duplication completely but the times I keep current with updates to the collection at the website(s) the duplication is at least paused slightly. Buying duplicates from Sportlots doesn't seem to be affected by this factor though. When buying card lots from Sportlots or from Ebay one almost always has to buy duplicates to get some of the cards you actually want and think you need.

If that isn't bad enough I am delinquent on a several trades, going back two years now, possibly more. I recently made up one 2 year delinquent trade and the recipient seemed to like some of what I sent. I sent a huge lot of stuff. I helped them complete a few sets (thanks to Sportlots) one of which they apparently had been one card from finishing for quite a while. It feels good to do stuff like that. I try not to be like that (delinquent). I try to be a good trader and often try to overachieve by adding bonus stuff and a little bit more than expected when possible.

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

I'm also delinquent on making some care packages for a contest I had a few years ago. Don't hate me because I have perfected the skills of procrastination.

Slowly I am trying to makeup for those delinquencies. Often times I made a commitment without being 100% positive that I had what was supposed to be sent, or partly agreed and that partial agreement was interpreted as a "go ahead and send your part". I need to stop saying things like "I think I have such-and-such" or "I might have that somewhere". I need to check my stock/hoard FIRST then make a comment that is interpreted as a commitment.

I've blogged a few times about Organization or the lack there of: In A Bind(er), Organizing Some Random Thoughts, Random Card Thoughts. It saddens me a bit that I am STILL not organized, and far from being at the point of organization that I would like. That goes for everything in my life not just my trading card collection. I have some wonderfully organized ideas, but getting them done is the rub.

I belong to a football team traders group on one of the card forums. My claimed teams are my Homie Redskins and Rams as my secondary team.Years ago I was with the baseball group also and at one time was foolish enough to take over the management of both of them (at the same time). But I digress. Each month members send trade packages out to 3 or 4 members of the group. They set up trades within the forum's Trade Manager so they get trading credits. There is a sort of organized schedule and members of the group are divided into six sub-groups. Each month an assignment schedule is posted as to which sub-groups trade with each other. On occasion members trade within their own sub-group. So members who participate long enough will eventually have traded with each member and sent out each team at least once. Right now there are 7 unclaimed teams. There are 3 or 4 members who have a couple of teams, me included.

I keep my trade fodder for the group in a monster box sorted by team. I use those "card saver" plastic pockets (like ID card holders) as dividers with a simple label for file folders at the top with the team name written on the label. They aren't much good for any long-term protection of cards at all. This makes them useful for something.

Of course I have had to reinforce the labels with tape on the sides, because a few of them were popping off their card-savers. The teams unclaimed by the group are beginning to fill the box up. Instead of a temporary holding area for those teams it is becoming a permanent storage area. Eventually the overflow I will store somewhere else or try to trade elsewhere. It is helping me keep up with those trades at least. I also have a smallish lot of Houston Oilers I'd like to trade away. It was published as a CK42 Trading Post post on Sunday (the post before this one).

Another thing that helped me get a little more organized, especially with the Football team trading group, was a purchase of two sorting hats trays. I learned about thee trays from someones card blog post about the things. Sorry I forget who it is that blogged about these trays maybe a year ago? I got them off Ebay last November for $20 each Free shipping. A bit more than I wanted to get them for. I think I had seen one at $10-$12 but it was only one and I wanted two. The cheapest I've seen them is maybe $10 but with high shipping and I've seen them go for $40 or more I think straight from BCW they are close to $40.

I got the photo of the stack of sorting trays by doing a general search for the sorting trays. It was on a blog that I think is mainly about Magic The Gathering. It seemed to be somebodies business blog and they were talking about sorting sets and needing x number of trays to do the sorting per set. What?

Where does that leave me? Still unorganized and bemoaning the fact I guess.

Don't Toss That Junk

Got cards from the dreaded junk years (mid to late 1980s to late 1990s)? Never dump them in the trash, put them in the recycling bin first. Better yet send them to me. Believe it or not I still need to complete most of the flagship Topps, Donruss and Fleer sets from those years, as well as many vintage years. For a life-long collector I have very few full sets. As a kid I could never afford them and as an adult I don't see when they are affordable to me.